Aristotle

Early Works

Logic

At Assos Hermeias had succeeded in forming his own intellectual circle
consisting largely of former Academy members. Thus Aristotle was
able to retreat to another flourishing intellectual domain, and
around this time he began to formulate ideas that would be extrapolated
in his Politics. He also wrote the now lost work On Kingship, in
which he stresses that not only is it unnecessary for a king to
be a philosopher, which Plato concurred with, but that it is undesirable
for a king to be one. Rather, a king should turn the wisdom of
true philosophers into good deeds, allowing the philosopher to
remain independent.

Aristotle spent about three years in Assos before moving
to the nearby island of Lesbos. Settling in the capital city of
Mytilene, he shifted the focus of his research to biology. At that
time biology as a science was looked down upon and not given much
serious attention. Thus Aristotle felt obliged to justify his attention.
To do so, he used an innovative teleological approach. Such an
approach involves the determination of the natural ends of things,
and in the case of biology, the ends of plants and animals. Teleology
would provide the basis for many of Aristotle's treatises in other
areas, including politics and ethics. More will be said of his
biology in a later section.

In 343 B.C., Aristotle was invited by Philip of Macedonia
to tutor his son, Alexander. At this time Aristotle was far from
the acclaimed intellectual leader of Greece, and Philip's decision
probably was based on more practical reasons–Aristotle's connection
to Macedonia through his father's position as court physician may have
played a role, but perhaps most important was the diplomatic link
that Aristotle provided between Philip and Aristotle's friend Hermeias.
Hermeias played an essential part in Philip's plans to invade Persia.
But shortly after Aristotle accepted the tutoring position, Hermeias
was captured by a Persian general and tortured. Hermeias never
gave in to betray his allies, however: his final words were, "Tell
my friends and companions that I have done nothing weak or unworthy
of philosophy." His death moved Aristotle deeply, and Aristotle
himself wrote the epigraph that remains at Hermeias's memorial
today.

Aristotle served as Alexander's tutor for three years.
The education was for the most part formal, consisting of standard
subjects such as poetry and rhetoric. Homer constituted a significant
segment of their curriculum, as Aristotle attempted to inspire
his pupil with the model of the Greek hero. At the same time, Aristotle encouraged
the young prince in his hopes for Persian conquest. Aristotle's
hatred for the Persians was of course aggravated by the death of
Hermeias, and he succeeded in fueling Alexander's already strong
anti-Persian sentiments. For Aristotle there was never any doubt
that Greece deserved to rule over other nations, for such foreign
nations were barbaric and fit for enslavement. Aristotle's lasting
influence on Alexander may have been negligible, however. It was
on the issue of non-Greeks that student and teacher would ultimately
disagree, though the Persian invasion was long underway before
Alexander began attempts to unite his two empires in equality.

After Philip's death, Alexander would win Aristotle's
favor by restoring his home of Stagira, which Philip had pillaged
years before. Nevertheless, their relationship would deteriorate,
perhaps culminating in the execution of Aristotle's nephew Callisthenes. Callisthenes
had served as the official historian of the Persian expedition,
but while he fulfilled his role by writing as he was told, Callisthenes
shared his Aristotle's attitude toward the Persians and opposed
Alexander on strongly held ideological convictions. Alexander soon
had him arrested and executed on dubious treason charges, and Callisthenes
died a martyr. It is possible that Alexander even plotted against
the life of Aristotle, but he never had the chance to follow through.

When Philip was murdered in 336 B.C. and when Alexander
proceeded to crush resistance in Greece, Aristotle returned to
Athens. His friend Xenocrates took over the Academy, and Aristotle
set up a rival school at the Lyceum. Here he would flourish and
produce most of the works that survived to this point, many of
which are largely based on the lectures he delivered there. Members
of the Lyceum would become known as Peripatetics, named after the
area of the school where Aristotle gave many of his informal lectures.